Tag: He-Man

Winging their way from our Canadian neighbors (or neighbours as we say in the UK), were a couple of figures from the new Masters of the Universe range by Quest Miniatures, which I had posted about originally HERE.

Inside the package were Teela and Beastman, and, much to my pleasant surprise, a third miniature which was noted as being a special rare chaser figure of Beastman wielding an axe, so huge shout out of THANKS to Quest for this lovely little extra!

Now as I had mentioned in the previous post, when two of my hobby worlds collide, then I am in geek heaven (or Valhalla, which is my preference). While I aim to (one day) own the vintage Grenadier miniatures (purely as a collector of Masters of the Universe items), these new figures really overshadow those old and rather stiff looking minis. Let’s take a quick look:

Teela – now Teela was a must-have for me as she is easily within the top 5 of my favorite Masters characters (the first probably being Stinkor, but they don’t make him, yet…) so picking her up to review was a no-brainer. Now I’m going to say that in my excitement of getting these, I totally forgot to take some pictures of them before assembly, so apologies for that!

This is gonna hurt!

Of the three miniatures I received, Teela was the only one who needed assembling outside of being glued to her base. There was also no cleanup required! Whaaaaat?? Well, OK, I had to file her shield a little. She comes in four pieces: main body, right hand holding her sword, left arm and her shield. So far, the one and only thing I can raise an eyebrow at (and it’s really minor) is that the slotta tabs are slightly too long to fit in the bases. This requires some delicate trimming, making sure you don’t get the feet or break/snap an ankle. Once that was sorted, putting her together was a breeze. The wrist/hand/sword has a small peg/hole set up which is superb. There are some miniature companies out there that still can’t seem to manage doing this, so this was a welcome relief when gluing these two pieces together. The left arm and shield attached with no problems at all, although I feel that it won’t take a lot to knock this piece off – it’s a super small area which makes it almost impossible to drill and pin. I’ll just have to make sure to handle her with kid gloves.

Her action pose is exactly how I would sculpt her, in a ready stance, ready to start swinging that sword or parry blows with her trusty shield. The pose reminds me of the Teela statue made by Pop Culture Shock toys (something I wish I could afford!!!).

Her likeness is spot on to the FILMation (cartoon) version of the character. There is a mold line that runs down the left side of her face, but some careful cleaning took care of that (we’ll see when she gets undercoated). I just hope I can do her justice with a good paint job! It’s all there though, the bikini, the boots, the bob, and the attitude, bravo Quest!!! Now… onto the next:

Whip it real good!

Beastman – My other choice for this initial score was Skeletors’ flea-bitten henchman. On a side note, Beastman (in the early comic books) was quite the scary brute. Why the cartoon version had him merely as a punching bag for Skeletor I will never really understand but hey ho I guess that’s the cartoon archetype of the underdog…

A much simpler set up than Teela, Beastman was a single piece casting, again with no cleanup required but also having the slotta base tab issue. It’s interesting to note, that Quest have gone for the FILMation look again, as Beastman has the boots that were seen in the cartoon, but never on the toy version, though this does open up the options down the road to do alternate versions of these characters.

His pose has him slightly crouched, looking as though he’s ready to press the attack with his trusty bullwhip. My one thing I would say about Beastman is his size, I’d have probably made the sculpt a little bigger so he’s more intimidating, but this is not a make or break thing for me at all, just an observation 😉

Get her you boob! NYAAAAHHHH!

So in conclusion, I’m beyond happy with my initial purchase from Quest. They were quick to respond, quick to ship and very friendly to deal with and I highly recommend them. I’ll be picking up the rest of the first wave for sure, as I’m already imagining a diorama I want to build. Even those of you out there who really aren’t into MOTU could still use these in your RPG’s or tabletop battles for something a little different. Tonight these will be undercoated and then off they go to the painting table! I’ll post them up as soon as they are done.

So anyone that knows me knows my love of toy collecting and especially collecting all things He-Man related. Anyone out there remember the old rubber M.U.S.C.L.E. figures? well San Francisco based collector company Super7 have bought the license and have created several properties under the rubber keshi M.U.S.C.L.E. style, including the Alien franchise, Street Fighter, Mega Man and of course Masters of the Universe.

Why am I talking about this on my wargaming blog? Well, that’s a good question, but MOTU has in fact has a link with wargaming waaaay back in the 80s. Grenadier Miniatures released several box sets under the moniker of ‘paint and play’, which had a bunch of Masters of the Universe characters that would come in a box set with a vac-form bit of terrain to display the minis on, and (i’m assuming) some basic colors to paint your warriors of Eternia.

Now, I would love nothing more than owning these miniatures but they go for a phenomenal amount of money on EvilBay, so unless I find some at a flea market or garage sale, I won’t be getting any of these any time soon. (Hell, I’d even just paint some for someone out there just so I can say I’ve painted them!).

Step in Quest Miniatures, a Canadian based miniature manufacturer who are (from what I can understand) relatively new to the game. Their site is a little sparse right now, but they did debut a first wave of a new MOTU range of miniatures at this year’s PowerCon – a fan run convention of all things Masters of the Universe related. To say I was giddy is an understatement – the first wave has the core characters (including my beloved TEELA!!) with the mention of more waves to come AND and core game system in the works too – hurrah!

The miniatures aren’t ‘officially’ available just yet but apparently if you send a nice message to them, they will sell you a set, or individuals which I believe are $12 a pop, bargain!

Before all this came to light, I had based and painted one of my rubber keshi figures, Teela, which actually came out pretty well! She was a bright luminous green before I went to work:

I see an awful lot of potential in the new miniature line from Quest, and the fact that two of my hobby worlds are colliding has me super excited. Hopefully I can pick up some and do a review soon. Watch this space!